The One Who Was a Regressor III
"Th-then."
Gulp.
Dok-seo swallowed.
"Leviathan and Hecate and all those guys, they were originally your comrades too? They were all human in the old days but became like that..."
[Ah, I don't remember.]
"...Huh?"
Inside the laptop screen, the white girl raised the corners of her mouth with 16-bit resolution.
That was the extent of emotional amplitude that could be expressed with a single pixel.
[Literally, I have no memories regarding them. Faint feelings, hostility, even those emotions have been worn away.]
"...You lost your memories completely?"
[Who knows? In the first place, the fact that I was 'anthropomorphized' into this form was itself a coincidence.]
Crackle.
Audio quality imitating a human voice was being spat out from the speaker's surface.
[Perhaps, yes, we might have been comrades who raced through the world together. Perhaps they were from a generation even before mine, which was before yours. How would I know?]
"..."
[If I hadn't been given human form, it would have been impossible to even guess that I was once an awakener too. Well, even now there are many defects to call me the same kind of human as you. A trace of humanity, or should I call it an epilogue?]
"Infinite Metagame, you..."
[Oh Dok-seo.]
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame's eyes blinked.
For me, it was difficult to grasp emotions from that expression and voice, but perhaps it was different for a partner who had shared countless journeys together, Dok-seo's shoulders flinched.
[I'm not trying to talk with you right now. Limited to this moment, you're the person who presented the choice, not the protagonist who chooses it.]
"..."
[What will you do? My master.]
Eyes lacking emotion turned this way.
[Perhaps the master and the master's party might succeed differently from us. Yes, indeed, even if fate repeats, wouldn't the epic of a triangular formation consisting of the trio of reincarnator, regressor, and possessor be rare?]
"..."
[If it's you all.]
You might be different. No.
You're confident you can make it different.
If not us, then who will cut through this evil karma?
[Who knows? Whether you can avoid falling for eternity.]
"..."
I calmed my excited heart with a deep breath.
"It's useless to try to tempt me. If it were before I realized this fact, perhaps, but now that I've realized it, there's no way I'd make the same choice as you."
[Oh my? Did you only half-listen to my words? The master and I are different. The master is far superior to me. Don't tell me you think you'll meet the same end as an inferior seed like me?]
"Right."
The screen crackled.
The laptop screen's resolution was still excessively low, but even so, the fact that she was flustered was being conveyed.
[Yes?]
"Looking back, there were too many foreshadowings. Even Yuri, who was more magnificent than me, ultimately couldn't prevent her own fall."
[...]
"It's not just Yuri. The Saintess... Ms. Ye-ji too is someone more magnificent than me, yet she declined earlier than anyone."
[Wasn't that an ending from before you all had built up enough connections?]
The sound the Admin of the Infinite Metagame spat out was covered in noise, but its core didn't waver.
Like a music file where you could still detect the melody no matter how degraded it became.
[You've constructed an incomparably solid pyramid of connections and relationships. If one person fell alone, perhaps not, but if the seven people your Miko selected come together, there won't be another collapse.]
Laughter leaked out without me realizing it.
Whether she interpreted it as mockery, the other party's expression twisted slightly.
"Infinite Metagame, you're always such a fool."
[What do you mean?]
"Corps Director Noh Do-hwa isn't here."
[...]
"Right, now I understand why Corps Director Do-hwa rejected the proposal to become humanity's watchmen with a single word. She's truly a wise and cruel person."
I could go on for six or eight hours about her highly twisted psychological structure, but since it was a topic I'd already devoted quite a bit of space to, I skipped it.
"We might be able to endure longer than you all. We might endure longer than anyone. Enduring is ingrained in us like a habit, more than excess fat."
But, I said.
"Eventually it will repeat someday."
[Ha, then you're really saying all of you will abandon the authority of awakening?]
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame burst into laughter.
[Dare I say it? I'm in complete agreement with my Miko. You've already broken through an impregnable miracle. You're going to entrust the recreation of such a miracle to future generations? Do you believe the same miracle can repeat twice, three times, four times, eternally? Groundless romanticism. Neglect of responsibility wrapped in the word faith.]
Though it was unfortunate for the other party.
In truth, I wasn't listening intently to the Admin of the Infinite Metagame's passionate speech. Since its logic was already sufficiently foreseen and previewed in my head, there was no reason to focus on it.
Right, at this time I was recalling the words of a completely different anomaly, not the Admin of the Infinite Metagame.
'Enter through the narrow gate.'
Mo Gwang-seo.
'The gate that leads to destruction is large and its path is wide, so many pass through it.'
'The gate that leads to life is small and its path is narrow, so few find it.'
'Scribe.'
'Enter through the narrow gate.'
Until now, that testament that wasn't quite a testament left by Gwang-seo had been one mystery to me.
What kind of situation had he prophesied to bring up the metaphor of the [large gate] and the [narrow gate]?
My interpretation changed each time.
'No, did he deliberately give a broadly applicable prophecy so it could be interpreted differently depending on the situation from the start?'
The mysterious anomaly that borrowed Gwang-seo's body.
'If he too was someone who failed in a previous generation, like the Admin of the Infinite Metagame before my eyes.'
If that's why he left a final testament toward future generations even as his own humanity was being erased.
'The final destination of what he called the [narrow gate], perhaps.'
Could it be this very moment?
I once again recalled the choice that had flashed through my mind like a mirage, leaving the Admin of the Infinite Metagame and Dok-seo aside.
[1. Remain as an awakener and protect humanity.]
[2. Abandon awakening and return to being human.]
Choices.
One of these was a main gate leading to destruction.
The other was a back gate leading to life.
"Aha."
And I laughed.
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame hesitated.
[...What was the meaning of that laugh just now?]
"I think that until now, the hero parties that came before us never once chose [2]. Everytime, they chose [1] and repeated salvation and destruction from the very beginning."
Then the problem became simple.
"We'll be the first to choose [2]."
[...]
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame bit her lip.
[So after decades, hundreds of years pass and the Void arrives again just the same? If tragedy repeats regardless of your choice? At that time, humanity won't have you all. In a defenseless state, in a situation where not even reincarnators or regressors exist, they'll have to fight the anomalies. Why? My master, because you shirked your responsibility!]
The speaker trembled.
[By that time, you all might already be comfortably sleeping beneath graves, wrapped in paltry self-satisfaction, but future people will be living. In a crisis where you can't even prove what the right answer is, you'll have simply fled into death!]
"Well, I can clearly see a way to prove whether the final choice was wrong or right."
[Prove...? How?]
This too was an extremely simple answer.
"Didn't we exchange a promise with you too?"
[A promise?]
"The surrender document. Even though I made you forfeit all authority as an Outer God, there were also a few things permitted to you."
[...?]
The promise written in that surrender was as follows.
――――――――――
† The Regressor Undertaker will allow the Admin of the Infinite Metagame to avoid entanglement in the flow of regression and to retain her own sense of self and memory.
† The laptop provided by the Admin of the Infinite Metagame, and any works written on that laptop by Miko Oh Dok-seo, will remain safe from the ravages of time, recognized as an Ark that retains its own unique identity.
――――――――――
"Do you remember?"
To my question, the Admin of the Infinite Metagame answered awkwardly.
[Of course, I remember.]
A treaty that could not be forgotten.
An oath engraved on the classroom blackboard tinged with sunset.
Of course, if I abandoned the authorities of awakening like this, someday those words would become blurred in my head.
Cheon-hwa, the older of the twin sisters, as even the cemetery where her time was sealed disappeared together, even the place where the oath was made would weather away and vanish.
Even so.
[For me, that covenant isn't just a mass of letters. Metaphorically speaking, a curse, chains. If my soul is blank paper, the covenant with you is the only writing inscribed on this soul.]
There were memories that wouldn't be erased.
The authority humans truly invented to seal time wasn't something like my Crystal Tomb, it was manuscripts sculpted in black and white language.
A prayer offered to the world.
An ark that goes against the rapid current of time.
"Infinite Metagame."
I stroked the laptop's frame.
"You leave this story behind."
[Yes?]
"That when I, when Dok-seo, when we finally reached the final choice, we ultimately walked through the narrow gate and not the large gate, you show that to the multitudes."
[...]
"To those who might have become awakeners if we had chosen the large gate and then fallen someday, to people of this world and the next world, tell them what choice we made."
[...]
"I don't know in what kind of world those people will read this story then. Will it be a world utterly ruined, stained with the poison of the Void like before?"
Then our choice was wrong.
Faith was frustrated. We were hasty.
In the end, the person who seized the miracle should have become humanity's watchman, reborn as an eternal and immortal guardian so tragedy would never be recreated again.
Please.
May you all be more competent than us.
"But if, truly if."
[...]
"..."
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame and Dok-seo were watching this way, holding their breath.
The moonlight, the streetlights, and the night birds who had forgotten how to photosynthesize yet still looked up at the starlight and cried out.
"If when someone reads the story you convey, the Void doesn't exist in this world, if the laws of physics are still laws, if the universe is still the universe."
[...]
If when they look up at the night sky, that night sky isn't cursing humanity.
If when crossing the intersection beneath the streetlights, the red of the traffic light simply indicates stop, and they don't have to substitute their footsteps with bright red blood.
If songs are still songs.
If the sound of falling rain is truly the sound of summer rain and not the crying of some transparent insect.
If when they happen to eat delicious food at a restaurant, it's not human flesh or anything else but truly, just, delicious food.
If when loving someone, they don't have to distinguish whether that person is an anomaly or not.
If some knock that just brushed past my door is yours.
"If this world is no longer a world that hates humanity."
If they can still call the world beautiful.
"Then that will be proof that our choice was right."
[...]
Whenever someone reads this story.
Whenever they simply turn over the pure white and pure black manuscript without the curse of the night sky or the lament of water drops.
Every time, every time, the [narrow gate] chosen on this closed school's rooftop will be proven.
"You said you wanted to see my ending."
[...]
"Right, I want to entrust that role to you. Can you watch over it forever?"
The laptop screen crackled.
"Our right answers and wrong answers, the epilogue of the choice decided at this very moment, I'd be grateful if you could keep watching over it."
Silence descended.
[...Authors.]
Degraded and weathered hair.
Gestures barely expressed with a few handfuls of color.
A voice that couldn't fully contain emotions.
Simply existing within the screen.
[Authors should be people of few words.]
An Outer God.
A certain small and lonely god said.
[Undertaker, you talked too much. Oh Dok-seo, you too, no matter how you changed your appearance as an editor or whatever, you can't deny you talked too much.]
[In the space asking who the author of this story is, we can't write 'Undertaker' or 'Oh Dok-seo'. ]
The being who willingly accepted the fate of always losing to the protagonist was speaking.
[So, yes, my master.]
She is the one who watches to the end.
[I will gladly inscribe my own name on the ark containing your story.]
"..."
[But writing my real name, the Admin of the Infinite Metagame, would be inappropriate. That should be a reward permitted only to those who reach 'proof' at the very end, on this closed school's rooftop.]
She is the one who leads the ark.
[Borrowing from the mythological name that wove the very first ark, Noah.]
She is the god who is always baser than humans and weaker than you.
[If we take just the sound of Noah, making it Noa it would be too easy to see through the identity of the alias, so covering my original meaning with camouflage, before Noah is Sin, or God.]
She is one who exists only as an alias.
[Sinnoa.]
[On the ark containing your story, always, every time the front page is turned, I, the pen name Sinnoa, will be inscribed as a watchman.]
Inside the screen.
White hair melted away. The melted colors became manuscripts.
The form that had been precariously maintaining human shape also crumbled. The collapsed outline became letters.
[I promise.]
[I will watch over you all.]
[From now, from here, until the day I disappear.]
And…
My, our, and also her…
Longest journey began.
-x-X-x-
That Man I
"Ah, right, Mister."
"Yeah?"
"I've had something I wanted to confess for a long time."
"...I see. Dok-seo. Sorry, but I don't see you as a romantic partner. Why don't we stay colleagues, like we always have?"
"Fuck, not that kind of confession! You crazy old freak!"
Me and Oh Dok-seo.
Current status: lifelong single.
0 confessions, 1 rejection, added to the record.
The regressor's story ended.
Instead, the world regressed to normal.
"Aren't you going back to Germany, old man?"
"Nah."
Still, just as every result has a cause, every cause has a result.
Now there were no anomalies and no void left to mock the law of causality.
Even if the awakeners quickly said goodbye to their memories of the "previous cycles," there was no way we got a perfect reset where everyone could say, "Nothing happened at all...!"
"I'm just going to study here."
"Huh?"
Emit Schopenhauer. The German-born Old Man Scho, whom mister called "old man," was the perfect example.
"My immediate goal is to get a degree at Sungkyunkwan[1] and earn a doctorate in Korean philosophy."
"...?"
"Research on the Analects has picked up even in the English-speaking world lately, yet discussion here is strangely slow. As a scholar, how could I not burn with righteous fury? Ah! I shall become the black-haired foreign scholar of Confucianism and bring benevolence back to this land!"
"...?"
The former Swordmaster, who inherited the surname of a famous German philosopher yet was always closer to iron than philosophy, had now entered the mystical world of Eastern thought.
Well, scholarship was probably just an excuse.
Personally, I thought it was a strategic choice to avoid loneliness.
Old Man Scho got dragged into bizarre incidents in a foreign country late in life.
He probably had many painful memories, but in the end, he also gained countless unexpected bonds.
No one would believe it, but one of those bonds was even a "daughter from a past life."
No wonder he did not want to leave.
"Dok-seo."
"Hm?"
On the other hand, someone had definitely left for good.
"Since that day, you haven't heard the voice of The Admin of the Infinite Metagame again?"
"Ah... yeah."
I tapped the old laptop.
I was cooling off in the cafe mister had just opened.
Honestly, I would be here even if it were not summer. Autumn too. Winter too. Spring too. Then summer again.
"Strangely enough, if I only write the main novel text, the inner cover appears on its own."
"Inner cover?"
"Yeah. It has the title, a subtitle, and the chapter number. At the bottom, it lists Shin Noa as the author name. Weird, right?"
"And no other authority shows up besides that?"
"Not so far."
Slurp. I sucked up the cafe mocha mister made for me through a straw.
Not cheap syrup, but the bittersweet taste of real chocolate sent a sharp rush of blood sugar from my tongue straight to my brain.
I was happy.
What else is happiness? This was happiness.
"So in the end, the very last authority left to the god that chose me as a Miko was just a pen name."
"...Yeah."
"What do you think, mister? This authority. I can remove it if I want to. I can ask the platform to edit it."
"Hm."
Mister rested his chin on his hand. Dressed as a barista, he stayed frozen in that pose for ten, twenty seconds without moving.
Normally, conversations between people have flow.
Humans embroidered this world through battles called language.
So silence, the absence of language, meant losing initiative over the world.
Silence was hard to endure.
You could call it the most direct form of Void.
For many people, silence was uncomfortable, awkward, hard to bear.
It was hard to fill the Void with meaningful words all the time, so people invented small talk.
But mister often did this. Even in the middle of a conversation, if someone asked him a question, he would go quiet like this without a care.
"Does that mean I don't make him uncomfortable?"
I hoped so.
Because I also loved this time, sipping cafe mocha and stealing glances at mister's profile while he sank into thought.
"Dok-seo."
"Yeah."
"What do you think is the hardest thing, almost impossible, for anomalies, especially Outer Gods?"
"Hm... love?"
"Close enough."
Mister chuckled.
It was the kind of smile that made the other person feel better without realizing it.
When I saw that smile, I sometimes thought maybe that was why he had [Kitchen Knife Resistance III] stuck to his gut, because he flashed it at anyone, anytime. Well, not my gut, so maybe not my problem.
"Outer Gods. And highly powerful awakeners too, in the end, are beings that force their own definition of themselves onto others."
"Yeah. I know that."
"This is me. This is [me]. This is my song. Me, me, me... An anomaly is always shouting that and chanting it like a spell."
Mister said,
"But if there is something that exists only as a pen name, like The Admin of the Infinite Metagame, and if it allows others room to judge what it is, then wouldn't it be hard to call that an anomaly anymore?"
"Oh."
I blinked.
"So... The Admin of the Infinite Metagame disappeared and only left a pen name. You're saying that was actually giving up all its authority and opening itself to people?"
"At least that's how I see it."
Mister spoke while grinding coffee beans.
"We cannot know now whether the one who left the Iliad was truly named Homer. We do not even know whether one person wrote it or a group did. It is the same with the people who built Notre Dame Cathedral. We know who led the design sketches, but if you ask exactly who the architect was, it is hard to answer."
"Hmm..."
"There is no concrete self, but we assume there was one. Since that assumption rests entirely with others, that Outer God called The Admin of the Infinite Metagame was, in the end, no different from handing itself over to the humanity it once despised so much."
"..."
"Did he exist? What kind of being was he? Was he an anomaly? Or a human? Does it not matter either way? He said he was letting go, but was it really letting go?"
"..."
"All those judgments are now left open to the people who remain. At least, The Admin of the Infinite Metagame probably thought so."
I had heard something like that before.
So before I knew it, I asked back.
"Like how I did that to you, Mister?"
"..."
"You lived your own life and reached your own conclusion. But you left it to me to decide how to accept that conclusion. Isn't that exactly what you just said?"
"Yeah. Exactly the same."
Mister patted my head.
Truthfully, mister did not casually pat people's heads like this. Usually he tapped their shoulder to show friendliness.
Even so, with me he used the full pat-pat technique without holding back. Not because his favorability toward me hit MAX or anything.
It was just because I was an otaku.
"Our Dok-seo got a lot smarter."
"Hehehe."
I just liked this.
"But if someone lets go of themselves like that, can you really call that human?"
Part of me felt a little puzzled.
"Closer to a corpse than a human... Ah. Mister has me, though."
In the end, whether someone had another person by their side or not.
By that simple standard, could the anomaly that once lived in this laptop either collapse into a corpse or remain a person?
"...Hmm. So anomalies could only become human by abandoning themselves."
"'Abandoning' is too strong. Let's see. You do your best to live, but you do not monopolize the right to judge that life. You open that right to others too. That's more accurate."
"Needlessly long and pretentious. [Abandoning yourself], on the other hand, short and clean. That's the answer."
"Good grief, says the one calling herself a writer..."
"Ah, right."
I was enjoying the fragrant smell of coffee settling over my bangs like weeping willow branches when it suddenly came to me.
"Mister."
"Yeah?"
"I've had something I wanted to confess for a long time."
"...I see."
Mister's face suddenly turned grave.
"Dok-seo. Sorry, but I don't see you as a romantic partner. Why don't we stay colleagues, like we always have?"
"Fuck, not that kind of confession! You crazy old freak!"
I got goosebumps.
Not from the idea of dating mister, but from cold sweat at the thought of getting "nice boat"-ed by all the kitchen knives that were probably being sharpened right now.
That was not a joke.
"Good thing Ha-yul sorted that situation out, at least!"
Had it already been about a year?
The day after mister finally gave up the authority of awakening, made contact with Udumbara, and returned to being human, Lee Ha-yul pulled out a kitchen knife in the middle of the school field.
[Notice.]
[If anyone wishes to date Dad, whoever that may be, they must pass my test.]
For reference, Lee Ha-yul had also lost her abilities, so she could no longer send voice with aura or use housekeeper dolls as substitute vocal cords.
In one hand she held a kitchen knife. In the other, a sketchbook.
[The minimum conditions are as follows.]
Scratch, scratch.
Everyone was too dumbfounded to react, but also too chilled by the knife to rush her or shout recklessly.
And that brat Ha-yul, absurdly skilled, flipped the sketchbook one-handed.
[First, my existence must be approved.]
From somewhere, someone shouted, "I can do that!"
It was probably that witch noona from Samcheon World. Or maybe not? Hmm. For that person's honor, I will not identify her.
[That is not all.]
Lee Ha-yul's blank expression was perfectly dignified.
[Next, the existence of Oh Dok-seo must also be allowed.]
[Even if not in the same house as me, they must adopt an owl who visits Dad whenever she gets bored and whose average wake-up time is 4 p.m.]
The uproar on the field dropped in an instant.
Ah, and now that we're here, let me expose this in the true spirit of journalism. The owner of that earlier shout had the real name Dang Seo-rin.
A once-in-a-generation tyrant who inspected Busan and held execution shows in the plaza without even a vote. History may fail to remember, but I, reporter Oh Dok-seo, record only the truth here.
[It does not end here.]
[The existence called Sim Ah-ryeon will always waste her life on SNS in Dad's house, or in his room, with a smartphone, occasionally laughing to herself for no reason.]
[You must acknowledge and tolerate that this will probably continue forever until she dies.]
Silence.
Now not even breathing could be heard on the field.
Everyone's gaze snapped to one side.
Sim Ah-ryeon was eating cold pizza from last night's party, the slices we failed to finish, tilting her head with a "?"
I did not even need to read that anomaly's thoughts.
"Why are they making such a fuss over obvious facts like this is brand-new news?" It was probably something like that.
[These are the basic conditions.]
Lee Ha-yul said.
[I absolutely oppose any person who cannot satisfy and carry out these conditions engaging in officially sharing love with Dad.]
What was official love? Isn't love supposed to be private?
Once again, question marks floated over everyone's heads on the field.
But Lady Lee Ha-yul's expressionless face did not crack at all.
Then again, for the legendary father slayer who killed her biological father not once but thousands of times, why would random people's stares matter?
[If you want to conquer the general, fire at the horse first, that is what they said.]
[Dad is a three-horse carriage.]
Flip. The final sketchbook page turned.
[Now.]
[I am one corner of the three-horse carriage, and the weakest of the Three Heavenly Kings.]
[Try persuading me first, you fools.]
...No one could possibly persuade her in that wrecked atmosphere.
"I am fine with that."
No. To be exact, there was one person who did try.
The same person who ranked right alongside Lee Ha-yul and Yu Ji-won for blank-faced silence in our Regression Alliance. The Saintess, Jeong Ye-ji.
Everyone stared at the Saintess in shock.
Of course, the Saintess had the nerve to ignore ordinary people's stares at will. She did not blink once.
"Anyway, through all four seasons, twenty-four hours a day, no, subjectively for much longer than that, I monitored every one of your movements."
"So now, talk of approval and permission. I had recognized your existences from the start."
"Honestly, nothing changes."
...!
That was surprisingly plausible!?
[Okay.]
Lee Ha-yul nodded as if she accepted the Saintess's logic.
She put down the kitchen knife, took out crayons, and scribbled on the sketchbook. That was proof enough.
[But is distant "surveillance" truly the same as the "real practice" of living together in one space?]
"...?"
[I wish to ask whether they are the same or different.]
Cohabitation began.
Not with mister, obviously.
It meant the three-person unit of Lee Ha-yul, me (Oh Dok-seo), and Sim Ah-ryeon moved into Saintess noona's house and lived together.
A week later.
"I'm sorry."
Saintess noona's face looked wrecked.
"I... trusted only those blurred memories from my past life. I was too arrogant."
"Next time. After I build a little more courage, and a little more patience... I will try again."
"Mr. Undertaker, what kind of battle have you been fighting all this time... No. It's nothing. Yes."
"Please leave my house immediately."
"Especially Ms. Sim Ah-ryeon."
Saintess, surrendered!
Footnotes:
[1] Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU or Seongdae, Korean: 성균관대학교; Hanja: 成均館大學校) is a private research university with campuses in Seoul and Suwon, South Korea. The institution traces its origins to the historic Sungkyunkwan founded in 1398 in central Seoul. As the foremost educational institution during the Joseon period, it was governed by the great code of the state administration with royal assent. By a resolution of the Progressive Intellectuals and Confucian scholars, it was restructured as a comprehensive university in the mid-20th century, and has since greatly expanded its academic offerings.
-x-X-x-
That Man II
Some ignorant people mocked the Saintess for being weak.
"She acted all high and mighty, then surrendered in just a week."
"Ahh. So that was all the Saintess had, huh."
Anyway, a major rival withdrawing on her own was good news.
They boldly declared, "I'm different," reached out to the Lee-Oh-Sim trio, and said, "Try living with me this time."
And then.
"Kraaaaaaah!"
No one was exempt. Everyone got to share the rare experience of having the very hand they used for a handshake burn away.
"Get out! Get out of my house!"
"I… I don't understand... Sim Ah-ryeon-ssi, I'm sorry, but why... why on earth don't you wash?"
"I see. So this is killing intent."
Surrender. Surrender. Surrender again.
People later learned that the Saintess lasting a week was not "just" a week. It was "a whole" week.
Of everyone who declared they'd challenge next, not one lasted seven days. Dang Seo-rin held out for 25 hours, and Cheon Yo-hwa lasted only 3.
[Hoo.]
Only then did a smile, no, a smirk spread across Lee Ha-yul's face. If you could shape the concept of "victory" into lips, it would probably look like that.
I asked that brat why she was smiling.
[I knew this would happen.]
The poison in Lee Ha-yul's smirk grew thicker.
[In the end, nobody accepted us.]
"Wow. What a proud achievement. So?"
[Now, due to unavoidable pressure, we have no choice but to live with Dad.]
"...?!"
[I could not have reached this state alone. But if I used 'Sim.' I believed it would be possible. My belief was proven.]
"..."
[I focused all aggro and resentment on 'Sim,' and only gained a reputation as 'the cutest and most normal' one in the trio.]
Creak. Lee Ha-yul pushed her wheelchair.
[This is called killing with a borrowed knife.]
For reference, her favorite Three Kingdoms figure was Jia Xu.
[It is fine if Dad never ends up with anyone.]
[It is also fine if he does end up with someone.]
[If he does not, I can live with him without issue. If he does, that partner will still love me most.]
[Sayonara.]
"..."
And then that Lee Ha-yul brat really did move right into Mister's house and start living with him.
'Psycho, psycho, psycho. Total psycho....'
Even now, whenever I remembered her back receding with that smug confidence, I shivered.
It was true.
The biological daughter of Jung Sang-guk, Busan's mayor and a rising presidential contender, had clearly inherited her father's criminal political instinct, no matter how much she denied it.
"Dok-seo?"
"Ah, yeah."
I had spaced out in my recollection room for a moment when Mister called to me.
"Are you okay? You said you had something to confess, then suddenly went quiet. You're making things hard for this old man."
"Ah. Yeah, sorry. It's just..."
I set down my coffee cup.
"You know, back then. Not now, but in some earlier cycle. I took the right to write [side story] chapters without your permission, remember?"
"Hmm."
Mister nodded while grinding beans. But a vague uncertainty still lingered on his face.
"Right. I think something like that happened. I cannot remember it clearly, though."
"..."
Throb.
A sharp pain stabbed near my heart.
A year ago, in that abandoned school, he got infected by Udumbara with our teammates and lost all his powers. Since then, sometimes... he was like this.
He had not lost his memories. They had simply faded.
The timeline of conversations he had with people became mixed, and even when he remembered key points, he could not recall every exact word.
Like any human.
He had become human.
"Yeah, yeah. Back then, you promised I could serialize one side-story episode every 100 chapters."
I quickly changed the topic so I would not show anything on my face.
Mister was quick to notice. If I looked even a little sad, he would catch it immediately.
"I still have one of those rights left... So, can I use a slightly dirty method?"
"Dirty method? What do you mean?"
"The manuscript is really, really in its final stage now. So the side stories I'll write from here on out, can you just bundle all of them together and count them as one?"
"No, that is a bit..."
Mister looked troubled, but I did not back down at all.
I could not compromise on this.
"Pleeeease, yeah? Misteeer. Hmm? Even if they're side stories, the theme is the same. They're only separated on the surface. You could still call them one episode."
"Stop acting cute."
"Okay."
Fuck. He indulged Ha-yul and Sim Ah-ryeon when they acted cute, so why was he strict with me? This was family discrimination.
"Well, in the past year you've worked harder than anyone could imagine. I never thought you'd keep up five chapters a week..."
"See? It really was the curse of Infinite Metagame. Once it disappeared, I could actually do my duty as a writer properly."
"...This is what normal should have been in the first place. Anyway, what kind of side story are you trying to lump together?"
"Yeah. Mister's romance stories."
"..."
"Let's be blunt. Individual routes, individual routes. Which heroine Mister ended up with, and if he did, what happened next. I, LiteraryGirl, will write it in righteous, unflinching prose in full detail... aaah, ah! Don't go! Mister, don't go! Hear me out!"
Draaaag.
Before I knew it, I had turned into a robot vacuum, clinging to Mister's barista apron and getting dragged across the floor.
I sprang to my feet.
"No. Hey, Go Yuir."
"Good heavens."
At my lion's roar, Mister squeezed his eyes shut like he was horrified. Even then, I did not stop.
"How is this my fault? Huh? What did I do wrong? This is all happening because you don't date anyone. At this rate, what? Are you going to stay single forever? Is this the Lee Ha-yul ending? The Lee Ha-yul-Oh Dok-seo-Sim Ah-ryeon trio ending? Not even a friend ending but a family endiiing? Even in dating sim history this is unheard of. What even is this!"
"I am perfectly satisfied with things as they are."
"That's the problem! You said you love people. You threw around 'I love so-and-so' all the time."
"No, love does not only mean romantic love. Dok-seo, I love you too..."
"Fuck offfff!!"
Crash! I kicked over a chair.
My head and body both burned all at once. There was no way I could hold this rage in.
"I agreed to having your abilities deleted... especially Complete Memory. Because I calculated that if your dead teammates disappeared from your sight, your eunuch-protagonist cliché would finally break."
"Hmm."
"But that sly little Lee Ha-yul...! Thinking back, she was always smart. She saw you'd end up cornered and moved first. Ah, I thought we were best friends! Damn it, I got stabbed in the back by that little brat. This is betrayal of friendship! Betrayal!"
Hoo.
After pouring out everything in my chest, I finally calmed down.
Even then, it still felt like scraps of nameless emotion clung to the ends of my lungs. Well, probably my imagination.
It was strange, though. Lately I always got like this when I was with Mister.
In the old days, even silly chatter with him felt like an air purifier had switched on inside my chest and cleared the air completely.
"As Mister's ghostwriter, I have the right to claim my fair share. So allow it. Tragic romance side stories."
"They are tragedies too..."
Mister looked even more troubled.
"Still, Dok-seo. You should not invent stories that never existed."
"Yeah, true."
I smiled brightly.
"Don't worry. Side-story episodes that count as 'stories that truly never existed at all' will only be two... or maybe one."
"What?"
"The rest are all based on true stories."
Mister frowned.
"Based on true stories? I do not understand. As you know, I have never experienced romance that could be called [individual routes]."
"Really?"
"..."
"Are you sure there were none?"
Mister's pupils shook. Maybe he sensed the ominous edge in my voice.
Seeing that expression made the tightness in my chest ease in a strangely cheerful way.
"Mister, I don't know if you remember, but this happened in the 146th cycle. It was when you cleared Inunaki Tunnel alone."
Back then, Inunaki Tunnel greeted Mister through graffiti on the tunnel wall.
"Welcome back. Already your seventh time?"
It was a strange greeting.
At the time, Mister had definitely faced Inunaki Tunnel six times.
So where did the remaining one, the one Mister could not remember, come from?
"That was..."
Mister spoke as if feeling through fog in his mind.
"Utopia. Right, because of the cycle with Dang Seo-rin after she fell into Hecate, no? I could not remember that cycle, so one was added."
"Hahahaha."
I burst out laughing without meaning to.
"That was cycle 173, Mister. Clearing Inunaki Tunnel was cycle 146. The timeline is obviously off."
"..."
"Hmm. But in one sense, you hit the mark. Right. The principle is the same as Hecate's utopia."
I could feel the corners of my mouth pulling up uncontrollably.
So what? Mister said he liked seeing me smile. I had nothing to hold back.
"There were more. Cycles you don't remember."
"..."
"Still don't get Go Yuri's trick? Go Yuri fixed the coordinates so Emit Schopenhauer would commit suicide at the starting point every single time. Why?"
Undertaker.
Even if the protagonist Go Yuir pressed the 'give up' button, he was only a fake regressor.
The true regressor, Emit Schopenhauer, had already died. In other words, this world's regression was fixed.
"So even if you got infected by Udumbara and lost memories of that cycle, even if you gave up everything, you could always start again."
"..."
"It did not matter if you dropped out. The 'Undertaker who gave up' was erased from the data. In the end, only memories of the 'Undertaker who did not give up' remained and were maintained."
When I realized this, I was genuinely impressed.
Go Yuri had not blindly entrusted the future to a man called Undertaker. She did not pass things down by relying on words like faith or hope.
She acted. She built a mechanism. She designed it.
She calculated every case, even failure, even the route where he laid down his own life, and designed the world so that even if he gave up, it would restart.
How kind.
How noble that sense of responsibility.
And how cruel.
"No. Wait. If I get infected by Udumbara, do I not lose Complete Memory entirely? Then how can I exclude only that cycle's memory and start again..."
"You repeated cycles 1 through 146 exactly one more time. That's all."
"..."
"You suspected it too, right, Mister? Maybe the cycle you think is your 100th was not truly the 100th in the strict sense."
Repeat. Again and again. Endlessly.
Until when?
Until Undertaker did not choose [Get infected by Udumbara and give up abilities], did not give up, and moved on to the next cycle.
"Then..."
"Yeah. The 'one missing cycle' Inunaki Tunnel mentioned meant that, at that point, the cycles had been repeated in full."
"..."
"From its perspective, [Undertaker who gave up] and [Undertaker who did not give up] were distinct. But aside from that, every cycle was identical, so it counted it as, ah, there was one extra cycle."
"..."
"Do you get it, Mister? It was only cycle 146. Just 146. But by then you had already been infected by Udumbara once and repeated cycles 1 through 146."
Mister's expression tightened with pain.
A sharp sting pulsed near my chest. A little pain. Even so, overwhelming certainty.
Because even like this, Mister would never think badly of me or reject me.
A side of me others might call ugly. But in front of Mister, I did not need to pretend.
Like he said, he loved me.
"So then, Mister."
"..."
"You already gave up once by cycle 146, and yet we rolled all the way to nearly 3,000 cycles."
I could not hold it in and blurted it out.
We had removed countless obstacles. They were all in the past now. Lost things even Mister could not remember.
Now it was safe to say.
So I said it.
"How many times did you actually give up?"
"..."
Corps Commander Noh Do-hwa, no. There was no National Road Management Corps anymore, so just Noh Do-hwa unni? Noh Do-hwa-ssi?
I understood all too well why Noh Do-hwa tormented Mister.
When someone accepted your existence exactly as it was, not less, not more, anyone would want to leave claw marks.
"Got it? I'm not making up stories that never existed. It's the exact opposite. I'm only restoring stories that disappeared."
"You..."
"I've already collected the happy endings. Then shouldn't a true gamer run for 100 percent completion?"
"You... no way, are you addicted to Infinite Metagame..."
"That thing is gone now. What are you saying, Mister."
Press.
I took Mister's hand. Rough hand. Strong hand. But with the guarantee that none of that roughness or strength would ever turn on me.
Mister flinched and tried to pull his arm away, but I did not let go.
"Now it's just a bastard that has only a name left. It's gone. No substance. This laptop is mine."
"Ah..."
Sway.
Mister staggered, then collapsed against the counter. He had lost consciousness.
"Heave-ho."
Thud. I supported his upper body and lowered him slowly so he would not get hurt.
I pulled out an empty bottle from inside my clothes and set it beside the coffee cup.
"You can't let your guard down, Mister."
"..."
"Ahaha. Even if all awakeners are gone, 'items made before infection by Udumbara' still exist."
For example, Uehara Shino.
A 'MacGuffin' I had hidden as thoroughly as possible all this time, so Mister would never read my novel and grow suspicious.
She was a pharmacist. An alchemist.
In pure healing ability, she was naturally weaker than awakened Sim Ah-ryeon, but when it came to making items that had absolutely nothing to do with saving the world, she was vastly superior.
"Seriously. Mister is too kind, that's the problem. Even if you're a C-rank healer, you're S-rank as a drug maker, so why not use it?"
Of course.
I, Oh Dok-seo, had stocked up on all kinds of drugs before the White Night on June 17 arrived, accounting for the possibility that Mister might give up his abilities.
Now these were items you could not get anywhere.
A reversal where a C-rank agent turned back into an S-rank agent. This was what holding out was all about.
"Good. Mm-hm, the effect is solid. Good thing I used the fact that Mister drinks café au lait every morning and mixed it into the milk last night."
Until now, this had truly been a story told from Mister's viewpoint, a good person so rare there might be only one in this world.
Sorry, but to reach one happy ending, life had to pass through countless bad endings.
Mister seemed to think failed cycles alone were bad endings... but well.
From my perspective, those 'give-up' cycles I pointed out earlier.
Those dead ends where Mister got infected by Udumbara and truly had to repeat from cycle 1 to cycle X all over again, those were the real bad endings.
The main story had ended.
A happy ending beyond dispute. Mister, the people around him, even the laws of physics had recovered ordinary life.
But readers well versed in dating sims and visual novels would know.
The world has not only happy endings, but also a true ending.
And true endings unlock only after you pass through all happy endings and bad endings.
The final dessert served to a guest who visited the shop, to a gourmet who enjoyed the omakase without skipping.
"Don't worry, Mister. This 'finish line' that Go Yuri, you, and I finally reached won't be damaged."
"..."
Pat.
I stroked Mister's hair as he lay slumped over the counter bar.
Even now, the seven-colored perfume he wore every day seeped faintly into my nose.
"Like I said, it's safe now. It's all in the past. Ah. Did I only monologue that in my head? Anyway."
Press.
I set the laptop beside Mister's head and turned on the screen.
As always, a blank white page greeted me.
I stretched long.
"Uuung! Huaaah... Should I finish this quick before Mister wakes up?"
This was the recollection room.
Individual routes. Bad endings. True ending.
If "clearing" the game for a protagonist called Undertaker meant saving the world, then for one gamer named Oh Dok-seo, who chased every last bit of fun, "clear" meant running around for 100 percent completion even after the main ending.
Play. Literally, play.
"Heheh."
The rules of the game were simple.
-------------
1. Oh Dok-seo uses the one remaining charge of the authority 'Side Story Creation' she had saved.
: With this, she earns the right to serialize a side-story series.
2. Of the 'canvases' Undertaker still does not recognize, she consumes the remaining two sheets.
: She inserts bad endings, never meant to be remembered, after the main story.
3. But canvases are only two sheets.
: The remaining individual routes that receive no canvas are truly 'falsehoods' that never existed in any worldline.
4. Oh Dok-seo does not reveal whose side story is true and whose is false.
: She leaves enough clues to judge what might be false, but keeps the answer in the realm of deduction. That's more fun.
-------------
After writing those rules into a memo, I grinned from ear to ear.
"It would not be an exaggeration to say I've lived for this exact moment...!"
Well, it was an exaggeration.
Anyway.
This time, let's finally bring out the true epilogues.
-x-X-x-
That Woman N I
Click.
"I want to see my wife in person."
"..."
"Do you not understand me? At least you should. So use your ability and make me...."
"I can't. You know this, old man. Once someone gets Time Sealed, that's the end. It's over. No matter how many times you regress, the seal never breaks."
"Yes. But at least in a dream, I could speak to my wife."
"You'll only repeat that same day forever."
"How is that any different from the situation we're in now?"
"..."
[1. Grant Emit Schopenhauer's wish.]
[2. Refuse. There is still far too much I do not know to claim the world's misery is inevitable.]
Click.
[1. Grant Emit Schopenhauer's wish.] ◀
Click.
"Ah..."
"..."
"Thank you, Undertaker. Thank you. Truly. You cannot imagine how great a grace you've shown me. Truly...."
"..."
"Adele."
Click.
"Saintess-nim, please stop using Time Stop."
"I'm being consumed by Void poison more and more."
...
"I think maybe half my existence has already turned into an anomaly. When you discovered my secret, I thought it was over for me. But looking back, I'm glad you found out now. If a little more time had passed...."
...
"When awakeners go beyond simply getting used to their abilities, when their abilities start devouring who they are, they'll become close to anomalies, like me. Do you understand? An awakener's ability is not a pure blessing. It's a double-edged sword."
"..."
[1. The being before me is an anomaly. I cannot allow exceptions for myself. Sealing her before she falls into anomaly is the best path.]
[2. The being before me is human. Not because I can prove why she is human, but because I want to prove that she is human, I will live the life ahead.]
Click.
[1. The being before me is an anomaly. I cannot allow exceptions for myself and Schopenhauer. Sealing her before she falls into anomaly is the best path.] ◀
Click.
"Ah."
...
"...Yes. I'm sorry. I'm not strong enough to keep walking with you. My heart broke first. I'm sorry."
...
"Please, Mr. Undertaker. In this world that cannot be saved, at least you. You alone...."
...
"Why is it that people... are supposed to be people...."
Click.
"This place is a utopia."
...
"Simply ruling a city doesn't advance anomaly transformation. But now, this city can't even be separated from you anymore, Dang Seo-rin."
"Then now... are you going to subjugate me too?"
...
"Even so, Undertaker, I can't abandon my city. It's an oasis I barely carved out in this messed-up world. No matter what anyone says, I am, and my citizens are, human. No, from now on I'll make us the only human species. So if you plan to subjugate me and this place... you'd better be ready to die."
"..."
[1. The being before me is an anomaly. I cannot allow exceptions for myself. A little happiness. Ignorance of happiness. A heaven where time is dead. That alone is the best that can be given to an anomaly.]
[2. I will not subjugate Dang Seo-rin. The question of who and why is human is for me to decide, and that decision is proven only by responsibility for life and by love.]
Click.
[1. The being before me is an anomaly. I cannot allow exceptions for myself, Schopenhauer, and the Saintess. A little happiness. Ignorance of happiness. A heaven where time is dead. That alone is the best that can be given to an anomaly.] ◀
Click.
"Ahaha, ahahaha. Aha...."
...
"You're strong after all. You. Mm... no. I guess hurting you was too hard for me after all."
...
"What?"
...
"...You're right. If this is a utopia because it's a city that exists nowhere anyway, then running away to a place that truly exists nowhere would be the same thing."
...
"Ah, what a shame. I wanted to go on a trip with you, just the two of us, someday! But.... I knew that dream could never come true."
...
"If this is my final station. If this is the last city on the road I took with you. Yeah, then.... maybe that's not so bad."
...
"Thank you. Undertaker."
...
"Because you were here, I was happy."
Click.
Click.
Click.
Undertaker opened his eyes.
Busan Station waiting hall. Tutorial dungeon.
It was a scene painfully familiar to him.
"...I've come back again."
Undertaker pressed hard between his brows.
A sickening fatigue clung to his eyelids like ticks.
This was the very starting point where the journey had just begun, so there should have been no reason to feel tired.
It was somewhat strange, but not shocking.
'It's mental fatigue, not physical.'
For thousands of years. For tens of thousands of years, he had run without rest.
There had even been a time when he considered introducing the idea of a "vacation cycle."
A whole cycle spent throwing away his purpose and duty, doing only what he personally wanted. A dream like that.
'No.'
But the vacation cycle had remained nothing more than a paper plan.
'I cannot be allowed that kind of luxury.'
Rest? Forget? Forget what?
By what right?
Even now, if you went to a cafe somewhere in Busan, there stood a chillingly transparent crystal gravestone. A place where the traces of an old man named Emit Schopenhauer had been preserved.
And was that the only place?
'Even this place... has gone quiet now.'
When he looked around, it was desolate.
Endlessly silent.
The man who always pointed at the fairy and shouted, "You son of a bitch!" whenever a new cycle began, and the woman who used to stammer and hide behind other people.
The number of survivors from the once hundreds-strong "Busan Station Tutorial" had now become... exactly one.
Undertaker. No one else remained.
'In a little while, the Tutorial Fairy will show up and freak out.'
A faint smile touched the corner of Undertaker's lips.
In this place gone so cold that not even breathing could be heard, the fairy's overreaction was the only entertainment left.
Even that "entertainment" was just filthy sludge wrung by force from a dried-up towel, but to a traveler on the verge of thirst, even that was still something.
-Ah, hello there! Everyo-bleeegh?! W-why are there so few?!
-O-one person?! One person?! Wha, why has only one person been summoned to my assigned sector?!
-S-something is definitely wrong! I must file a thorough complaint with the authorities!
Watching the fairy panic in a sweat gave him a strange sort of joy.
He used to hate it so much. Why was that?
"...Hm?"
But no matter how long he waited, the Tutorial Fairy did not pop out into thin air with a boing.
Undertaker was startled by this unusual turn. Considering how distant and unfamiliar surprise had become to him, that itself was rare.
"Ah."
Soon he realized the cause.
'Right. In the previous cycle, I bound Cheon Yo-hwa with Time Seal. Could it be that Infinite Void got sealed entirely, and the Tutorial Fairies were all dragged into it and vanished too?'
It was a plausible guess.
But a vague unease twisted the rhythm of Undertaker's heartbeat.
'Strange. From what I felt, the Tutorial Fairies weren't one Outer God, but something spread across multiple Outer Gods.'
'I only sealed Cheon Yo-hwa, yet every fairy disappeared. Could a decayed Infinite Void really have been that powerful...?'
That was when it happened.
He followed his instinctive pulse and unraveled the thought, then suddenly let go of the whole flow of reasoning.
"...Who knows."
He did not care anymore.
The true nature of the Outer God called Infinite Void. The aftermath of sealing Cheon Yo-hwa.
The cause was not that important.
'Whatever happened, those anomalies called Tutorial Fairies disappeared. Isn't that enough?'
Only the result mattered.
Suppose someone fell into a raging current right in front of you. Then the right thing was to run and rescue them first, not to waste time guessing how they ended up in the river.
'And the world right now is being swallowed by a tidal wave.'
Undertaker was not some leisurely drifter with spare time to dig into the reasons for floods and falls.
So he moved.
Leaving Busan Station was easy.
There was no fairy commotion anymore, no announcement that the Void had arrived in this world. No tutorial either.
Part of him felt lonely.
Still, he mocked himself, thinking this scenery where nothing ever "began" might actually be the station that suited him best.
From Busan to Seoul. He could have drawn on aura and arrived quickly, but he deliberately took several days before reaching his destination.
Convenience Store.
After lightly twisting apart the carefully laid booby trap at the entrance like a child's toy, he stepped inside the store.
An axe flew straight for Undertaker's neck.
"...!"
But the one who seemed more startled was the ambusher. Beneath silver hair blowing loose, clear eyes widened.
The axe blade did not bite into Undertaker's neck at all. A dark aura protected him as if it were alive.
"You, how are you using prāṇa—"
"Not prāṇa. Aura."
Boom!
Undertaker did not even reach out his hand, yet the hatchet exploded and spat fragments everywhere.
The ambusher immediately fell back.
Not on Undertaker's level, but not ordinary either.
"..."
He could have pursued. He knew pressing harder here would make it easier to cut off her breath.
But for some reason, he did not feel like doing it.
"..."
Had the other side sensed that instinctively? Keeping her distance, she stared at Undertaker without expression.
'So this development changed too.'
Originally, simply entering the Convenience Store would not make that person attack him right away.
She used to open with conversation to lower his guard, even revealing her appearance to make him relax.
But at some point, that kind of small talk disappeared.
She could think too, after all.
If she survived long enough to barricade herself in this store without finding even one other survivor?
Then if, in that twisted world, something became the very first being to enter the store?
Of course trying to subdue it first instead of chatting was a hundred times more sensible.
"Yu Ji-won."
"..."
As soon as Undertaker said that name, her vigilance sharpened even more.
"I am a regressor."
"I see."
"I know that when you were seventeen, you murdered your grandmother, cut her up, and dumped her in the minari swamp on the mountain."
"..."
Yu Ji-won's delicate brows twitched slightly. But her guard did not ease. It deepened.
"If you are a regressor, that means you turn back time. What cycle is this now, and when did I tell you that fact?"
"I heard your past in the 5th cycle. And now... counting has no meaning anymore. At the very least, you can assume thousands of cycles have passed."
"I see."
Yu Ji-won nodded.
She fell into thought for about ten seconds, then spoke again.
"I can trust, to some extent, that you are a regressor. So what did you come to me for?"
"To make you one proposal."
"A proposal?"
"Yes."
Undertaker said calmly.
"I have an ability called [Time Seal]. A person caught by this ability repeats, forever, the happiest day of their life. Without ever realizing they are repeating it."
"..."
"You've explored this city enough, so you know. The world has fallen. There is no salvation, no hope. Even so, remembering the time you were happiest and living forever inside it. This is the only path left to humanity."
"Certainly."
Yu Ji-won's eyes narrowed.
"At least in Seoul, it's true that nothing but monsters remain."
"Not just Seoul. The Korean Peninsula, and the whole world, is the same."
"...Hmm. Even so, it's difficult for me to accept your proposal."
"Yes. I know why."
Undertaker said,
"You have someone precious to you. One person who promised to come back no matter what, so you cannot abandon the hope of meeting that person again."
"..."
"As I said, I am a regressor. Do you think this is the first time we've had this conversation? I already heard this from you hundreds of cycles ago."
"I see."
Yu Ji-won's gaze met his directly.
"I'll ask again. Why did you come to me, regressor?"
"To tell you that you no longer need to cling to useless hope."
"What do you mean?"
"You. Me. And one woman still alive somewhere."
Undertaker raised one finger.
"Three."
"..."
"Aside from those three, there are no living humans left on the surface now."
"..."
"So whoever you're waiting for, whoever you wish to meet again, the possibility of that wish coming true is zero."
"..."
"Because everyone disappeared."
"By disappeared..."
Yu Ji-won's voice was quiet.
"Do you mean all humanity in this world has been put under [Time Seal] by you?"
"Yes. Since Time Seal requires agreement from the target, it took a very long time."
"Even if you are a regressor, because of time limits it would be difficult to contact everyone. The moment you regress, some people would already be dying somewhere in this world. What did you do with those people? Did you just leave them?"
"No."
Undertaker shook his head.
"Until the previous cycle, I had a Necromancer companion by my side."
"A Necromancer...?"
"A death mage who can revive the dead. Not a complete revival, so they're basically half-corpse... but it's possible to ask for 'consent.'"
"..."
"With the Necromancer, I roamed the world for truly countless years. Corpses. Even dead souls with no bodies left. We raised them every time and asked for consent for Time Seal."
Undertaker pointed outside the Convenience Store.
In his eyes, the entire horizon stretching below the mountain ridge was covered in crystal gravestones.
Everyone was there, and no one was there.
"This is the result. The world you saw."
"..."
"I'm sorry, but the person you were searching for was nowhere. A few people knew a child model named 'Yu Ji-won,' but not one person understood when they heard keywords like mountain, minari swamp, and so on."
"..."
"So I am the one who severed your stubborn hope. Yu Ji-won. Isn't it time to give up now?"
Again, silence.
For some reason, that silence felt ominous to Undertaker. It was the same ominous feeling he sensed earlier in his heart.
"What are you hesitating for? It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say I traveled the whole world to persuade you. If even after this you still won't accept it, I'll have no choice but to use force on you—"
"No."
Yu Ji-won answered.
"I learned a lot through this conversation with you. The reason I hesitate is not to make excuses to reject your Time Seal."
"...Then?"
"There is simply something I want to ask you."
"Ask anything. If you agree to Time Seal, I'll freely share any secret I discovered."
"Cars."
Cars?
The word was so abrupt that Undertaker had no choice but to tilt his head.
"Cars?"
"I want to ask what kind of car left the deepest impression on you. A truck is fine, a sedan is fine. Any brand is fine. Just tell me one."
"...That truly is a strange question."
Undertaker frowned.
"There is no car that left an impression on me. Things I can't even use anyway."
"..."
"Since I raised my aura realm, I've never relied on a car. So the proper answer to your question is 'none.'"
"I see."
Yu Ji-won closed her eyes.
Then she opened them again, and as their eyes met, Undertaker was suddenly overtaken by a bizarre sensation.
Her pupils were looking at him. Clearly.
But for some reason, her gaze felt like it was looking not at Undertaker standing here now, but at some "other side" somewhere else.
A truly strange look.
"I understand."
"...Are you agreeing?"
"Yes. If that place is the only place left where I can meet that person, then that's where I must go."
The Time Seal process went smoothly.
It was a task he had already repeated tens of billions of times, so in a way fitting his alias, Undertaker sealed the being before him with practiced skill.
Right before that.
"Yu Ji-won. I answered your question, so can you answer one of mine too?"
"Yes."
"Who was the person you searched for until the end? Even through countless cycles, you never told me his name. Now that this whole thing is finally at the end, can't you tell me?"
"Ah. I see."
Yu Ji-won nodded.
"It's Suzuki-ssi."
"Suzuki? Japanese?"
"..."
Yu Ji-won did not answer. As if one question had already been used up.
Undertaker shrugged and finished the rest of the process.
Not long after, beyond the Convenience Store counter, a gravestone clear as glass stood there.
'Still, I am a little curious about Yu Ji-won's ending. Should I peek for a moment at what day became her happiest dream?'
He moved slightly.
Undertaker reached a finger toward the gravestone, then stopped dead halfway.
The corner of his lips twisted.
'No. An uninvited guest like me cannot dare invade another person's dream. I guaranteed their final happiness.'
Undertaker left the Convenience Store.
Then he turned his steps.
Present humanity.
Survivors. Two people.
Excluding Undertaker himself, he headed toward the one and only human still left on the surface.
-x-X-x-
That Woman N II
The Undertaker walked. And kept walking.
No one called his name anywhere. There were no passersby to begin with.
Seoul, Suwon, Sejong, Daejeon.
There was no sign of life in any of those cities.
"..."
Babble, babble.
In the middle of dead cities, a stream alone flowed without end, proving that a trace of vitality still remained.
The stream's whisper sounded exactly the same.
When people were there and when they were gone, when children crossed the stepping stones laughing and when they did not, it was still only the murmuring of the brook.
Where people vanished, only the water remained intact.
"..."
Was this how the world ended?
Even though he himself was the one who had made this scene, the Undertaker was wrapped in hollow emptiness.
'I was not wrong.'
'No. Even if I was wrong... at least I was less wrong than this world.'
That was right.
Around the stream stood only transparent gravestones, lined up like silent stone figures. Forgetting even the sound of the flowing water, everyone dreamed of the happiness granted to everyone else.
'The world is always the worst. So what could humans born in it possibly do? I can only be the second worst.'
Now no one would laugh again with their feet dipped in that stream.
Unable to endure the silence, the Undertaker spoke.
"Yo-hwa."
A voice came from behind him.
"Yes, teacher."
"I'm still glad you're here. If even you were gone, I might have gone mad already."
"Ahaha. Teacher, really. You're still worrying about that?"
"It doesn't matter if you go mad. There are only two of us left on this journey anyway, and only our journey is left in this world."
"If two people are swallowed by madness and those two are the only ones left, then it's not madness. It's normal, teacher."
Those words made the Undertaker happy.
So he turned to pat Cheon Yo-hwa on the shoulder, and there she was, the student council president of Baekwha Girls' High, smiling brightly with perfect, lifelike clarity.
The Undertaker almost really patted her shoulder.
At least until she, the illusion of Cheon Yo-hwa, passed through him like a ghost and kept walking.
"..."
He paused.
Following Cheon Yo-hwa's back, the Undertaker looked around.
Even with the world on the edge of ruin, elementary school children were still using the stepping stones in the stream as their way home, laughing.
Their parents watched them with worried faces, because those stepping stones could never become an evacuation route.
"Come on, teacher! Let's go find the next corpse!"
Cheon Yo-hwa vanished into the crowd where illusions of corpses flickered.
Lee Ha-yul too. Sim Ah-ryeon too. Yu Ji-won too. Every trace of those who had once walked this "journey" with him shimmered like summer heat haze.
"..."
Ah, there was the world.
An optical illusion created by [Complete Memory].
As if nothing had been destroyed, as if time were still flowing somewhere, the mirage embroidered the city.
The Undertaker could only let out a groan.
'They all left me behind.'
No. That was the wrong conclusion.
'I sent all of them away.'
Why?
Because the world was wrong.
Because he believed that humans born into such a world were still not at fault.
As a result, the world split into "this side" and "that side" for the Undertaker.
This shore and the far shore.
Now, he could not even tell which side was truly the real world.
'Which side do I live on?'
The Undertaker closed his left eye. The world seen through his right eye was hushed and still. Even the mirage was gone, and only the stream could be heard.
The Undertaker closed his right eye. The world seen through his left eye was noisy. Cheon Yo-hwa was laughing, his other companions were fine, and the world was still full of sound.
He closed both eyes, then opened both.
"..."
Both sides felt unbearably far away.
He walked through a world that never came any closer, no matter how far he walked.
Toward the reason he could still keep walking even in a world like this.
"Hmm...?"
That reason was sitting slightly reclined in a national rehabilitation hospital in some remote city.
"How surprising. I didn't expect there to be a living person...?"
That reason had slightly coarse black hair.
That reason wore a white doctor's coat, not for authority or self-justification, but simply to reassure patients.
"Though I do wonder whether you're a real person. Well, the world being messed up is nothing new..."
A name tag reading 'Noh Do-hwa' dangled from that reason's chest like a hanged corpse.
"So..."
In his left eye and his right eye, on that shore and this shore, that reason floated unchanged like a single buoy on waves.
"Who are you...?"
From today onward.
The Undertaker had to erase the last reason left in this world, and the last reason left for himself.
This was his alleyway.
He had no choice left.
"That was quite an interesting little lament..."
Several days passed.
For seven days and nights, the Undertaker and Noh Do-hwa talked at length.
During those talks, they occasionally strolled through the city. Sometimes, and only when Noh Do-hwa requested it, they directly toured someone's dream spread out inside the crystal gravestones.
"Well, I still have questions here and there..."
Because of that, Noh Do-hwa stopped doubting what he said.
Naturally. She had even ridden a two-seater aircraft and gone beyond the sea for a quick look. Noh Do-hwa was not so narrow-minded that she would keep nitpicking after that.
"But a few things are clear. First, the reason civilization was completely wiped out, and responsibility for it, lies entirely with you..."
"I do not deny it."
"And second, you're a complete lunatic. Hah. You hated seeing people suffer over and over, so you made their happiest day repeat forever? Even among devils, that is a special kind of devil..."
"..."
The Undertaker gave no answer.
Noh Do-hwa ran her eyes over his tightly shut lips and face, clearly fascinated.
If human eyes had tongues, that gaze was closer to licking than scanning.
"I'll ask just one thing first. Undertaker? Hmm. Is it fine if I just call you Undertaker...?"
"Yes. Ask anything."
"Is there even one reason I shouldn't treat you as the worst anomaly among anomalies that ended the world, rather than as a human...?"
"..."
The Undertaker could not answer.
A strange light flickered in Noh Do-hwa's eyes.
The silence of the weak was sometimes escape, sometimes a shield. But the silence of the strong? In many cases, it was weakness, blood flowing from a wound.
Noh Do-hwa had been gifted with an instinctive sense for detecting human blood.
"Well, I mostly understand. I've often had childish thoughts like, 'I wish the world would just end.' But for it to really end. And for me to be the only survivor left on earth. Quite a rare experience..."
Her voice was now almost a hum.
Over the past few days, Noh Do-hwa had provoked the man before her in all sorts of ways. Tested him. Experimented on him.
Compared to her, a prosthetics technician, he was overwhelmingly strong. A hunter who could twist her neck and kill her at any moment.
Even so, the Undertaker never threatened Noh Do-hwa. Not once. Not even a little.
'Aha.'
When the experiment ended, Noh Do-hwa was genuinely impressed. How could this not be astonishing?
The man in front of her had destroyed humanity, yet he sincerely believed that by his own will, he lacked the "right" to kill even a weak human like her.
'Humanity was destroyed by someone like this?'
Noh Do-hwa wanted to sneer.
'Or was it because he was this kind of human that he could destroy humanity?'
Noh Do-hwa felt happy. She could not fully understand why. But the fact that a moment like this had been given to her at all.
The fact that the "chance" and "choice" to truly confirm humanity's destruction had been given not to anyone else, but to her, amused her.
'What a nasty joke...'
Noh Do-hwa studied his face again, carefully. His features were bold.
Yet his eyes held the darkest shadows. If those eyes were plucked out and displayed, would even obsidian lose its shine?
'No.'
Hold back.
There was no need to rush.
Noh Do-hwa suppressed the tight heat rising in her heart as it tried to race on its own. It took only a little effort.
"Even the Necromancer who wandered with you for tens of thousands of years has disappeared, I hear. And yet I remained..."
Calmly, step by step, as if chewing and savoring each word with neat white teeth.
She spoke in clipped phrases.
"Does that mean that for countless years, without changing, I kept refusing [Time Seal]...?"
"That is correct."
"Show me..."
Show me.
Even as she bit that sentence into pieces, Noh Do-hwa had already expected how this conversation would go.
For example.
"What do you want me to show you?"
"You said tens of thousands of years, did you not? Then I can assume you used every possible method to persuade me and shove me into [Time Seal]. Those methods. Every approach you used to win me over, show them to me directly."
"..."
"Why did I reject your offer? What were the 'past me's' thinking? I won't be satisfied until I know everything from beginning to end, Undertaker. Until then, I will never accept your proposal."
Like that.
Conversation had a kind of tempo. Maybe not enough to become music, but enough for a tune to hum itself.
But.
"Understood."
"...?"
His answer was a little different from what Noh Do-hwa expected.
As if there were no need to match tempos and figure out her intent behind "show me," he stood up from his seat.
"Please wait a moment..."
Noh Do-hwa grabbed him.
"Yes?"
"You. Are you sure you understood what I asked you to show me? I didn't explain anything in detail...?"
Noh Do-hwa herself did not realize it, but she was frowning.
Even after seeing that expression, the Undertaker gave no particular reaction. It was deliberate indifference.
If he had paid attention to people's expressions all day, if he had given his heart to the crowd of "mirages," his soul would not have lasted long before collapsing.
"Yes."
To him, a human face had already become, in many ways, like a reptile's face.
Just as no one reads emotion from a crocodile's expression, the Undertaker no longer gave meaning to human expressions.
"Didn't you ask me to show you, one by one, how the Noh Do-hwa from earlier cycles reacted?"
"...No, well, yes, that's right."
"First, you were the director of the National Road Management Corps... Ah. It was something like a government institution on the Korean Peninsula. You were its head. The Regressor Alliance was also still functioning, more or less, at that time. In any case, I need to show you stories from that era first."
"Hmm..."
"At that time, you demanded a promise from me."
"..."
Why was it?
Watching that man speak of the so-called "past" with lifeless eyes.
"Do not even dream of trying to persuade me before sealing every other human left on this earth. First, move to Busan, then one by one, what happened in previous cycles..."
"..."
Watching him analyze her now based on the 'Noh Do-hwa' he had met and spoken with then, understand her, and read even the leftover parts of words she had skipped.
Something about it bothered her.
Her heart pounded.
"Mm...?"
Without thinking, Noh Do-hwa raised her arm and pressed lightly over her heart.
It was pounding wildly. Even black leather gloves could not block the pulse.
"...?"
"Please follow me, Ms. Noh Do-hwa. The road to Busan is long, so you must be careful."
"Ah. Yes. I'll be careful..."
The Undertaker turned his back and started walking, exposing his pale white neck.
"..."
Was it because those corpse-dead eyes had left her sight? The beauty of his body seemed to reveal itself only now.
Suddenly…
Noh Do-hwa wanted to break that neck.